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I 



jEodem !5eltgtoujs i^tolJlemis 

EDITED BY 

AMBROSE WHITE VERNON 



THE FUNCTION OF THE 

CHURCH IN MODERN 

SOCIETY 

BY 

WILLIAM JEWETT TUCKER 

EX-PRESIDENT OF DARTMOUTH COLLEGE 
FORMERLY PROFESSOR IN ANDOVER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

1911 






COPYRIGHT, X9II, BY WILLIAM JEWETT TUCKER 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

Published March zgzi 



©CI,A28(>004 



CONTENTS 

INTRODUCTORY i 

I. THE MINISTRY OF SPIRITUAL 

AUTHORITY 5 

Roman Catholicism and Protestant- 
ism Contrasted 7 

Effects of the Intellectual Re- 
vival IN Christianity upon the 
Authority of Protestantism 14 

The Realization of the Freedom of the 

Bible 21 

The Struggle for Christian Unity 23 

The Apprehension of the Person of 

Christ 31 

The Religious Interpretation of the 

World 45 

V 



CONTENTS 

II. THE MINISTRY OF HUMAN SYM- 
PATHY 03 

The Reconciliation of Labor 8i 

Religious Hospitality 92 

Fellowship the Basis of Modern 
Missions 106 



THE FUNCTION OF THE 
CHURCH IN MODERN SOCIETY 

INTRODUCTORY 

Of the various ministries through which 
the Christian Church has from time to time 
wrought effectively in society there are 
two, which, if exercised fully and in right 
relation to one another, may be expected to 
fulfill in very large degree the function of 
the Church in modern society, — the minis- 
try of spiritual authority and the ministry 
of human sympathy. Modern society as re- 
lated to the Church is peculiar only in the 
fact that its demands are very exacting at 
these two points. Not many things are de- 
manded of the Church to-day. Probably 
there was never a period in which fewer 
obligations were imposed upon it, or when 
its advice was less frequently sought on 

I 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

matters of current interest and concern. 
But in view of the intellectual and social 
confusion of the present times, which we 
call modern in other respects than in re- 
gard to time, the original and normal claims 
upon the Church for authority and for sym- 
pathy have been greatly intensified. The 
demand for sympathy seems to be greater 
than the demand for authority. Society ap- 
pears to be more concerned about the re- 
lation of man to man than about the rela- 
tion of the individual man to his God, or to 
his own soul. It is doubtful, however, if this 
appearance altogether expresses the under- 
lying reality. The cry for bread is always 
startling, never more so than in days of 
wasteful plenty; but it is vain to assume 
that those who have bread enough and to 
spare are otherwise satisfied. The voice of 
such as are " striving to reach forward to 
the new light of the intellect, while not 
relinquishing the ancient loyalties of the 

2 



INTRODUCTORY 

heart,"^ is often heard in unexpected places, 
implying wherever heard " the tragic ele- 
ment of suffering," But the claims upon 
the Church for spiritual authority and for 
human sympathy are alike so constant and 
so pressing, and they are in reality so closely 
related, that the Church can at no time allow 
these essential and mutually supporting 
ministries to decline or to be separated. 
The history of the Church proves by too 
frequent illustration how empty a thing is 
authority without sympathy, and how weak 
a thing is sympathy without authority. 

It is the office of this brief essay to urge 
upon the Church the resumption of that 
spiritual authority, which has been in meas- 
ure suspended during the recent period of 
theological reconstruction, and to urge no 
less the return to that sympathetic concern 
in human interests, that fellow feeling with 
men, the absence of which at certain points 

* Letters to His Holiness Pofe Pius X,, Preface, p. xv. 

3 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

has caused much alienationfrom the Church. 
Doubtless the Church is farther on its way 
toward regaining spiritual authority than it 
is toward recovering the alienated classes. 
The process of theological investigation, 
criticism, and reconstruction made possible, 
as well as necessary, by the growth of the 
scientific spirit, has been going on for nearly 
a generation. But it is a question if the 
Church has as yet begun to understand and 
appreciate the religious significance of the 
problems involved in the economic changes 
which have been taking place within the 
same period, but more manifestly within 
the past decade. 



I 

THE MINISTRY OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY 

In discussing this aspect of our subject 
reference will be made altogether to the 
churches of the Protestant faith, and chiefly, 
for local reasons, to the churches of this 
country. The place of the Roman Catholic 
Church in modern society, especially in this 
country, calls for very definite recognition, 
but the discussion of its authority is foreign 
to our purpose except as an aid in setting 
forth the authority of Protestantism. In this 
regard it is becoming more and more neces- 
sary to the understanding of Protestantism 
to understand Catholicism. To the average 
Protestant, the authority of the Papacy has 
no logical place in modern society. It seems to 
be an intellectual anachronism. But the fact 
that it is maintaining and enlarging its place 

5 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

in the most modern of the nations is a fact 
too evident to be denied^ and therefore a 
fact which ought to be understood. 

Allowing that the growth of the Roman 
Catholic Church in America is chiefly due 
to immigration^ its growth is the more 
striking as an example of the holding power 
of Catholicism under modern conditions. 
Of course the explanation lies in the distinc- 
tion which Catholicism draws, and which it 
seems to be able to maintain, between mod- 
ern thought and "modernism^' — modern 
thought becoming "modernism'' only as it 
invades the realm of dogmatic religion. The 
devout Catholic may be modern in politics, 
in science, and in literature, provided he 
does not thereby become a "modernist.'' 
To what extent the spirit of "modernism," 
that is, the desire to apply historical criti- 
cism or any applicable form of scientific 
analysis to the traditional theology of the 
Church, is really infecting Catholicism, it is 

6 



MINISTRY OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY 

impossible to determine. The " modernists'' 
of Europe complain of the backwardness of 
their brethren in this country. This back- 
wardness cannot be attributed to the fact 
that American Catholics are untouched by 
^Hhe liberties and knowledge of the twen- 
tieth century.'' More likely the general 
freedom of thought which the American 
Roman Catholic enjoys serves to dull rather 
than to quicken his desire for greater free- 
dom in his religious thinking. The funda- 
mental difference between an intelligent 
Protestant and an equally intelligent Catho- 
lic centres around the actual use of the 
right of private judgment. Each uses this 
right in his own way. The intelligent Pro- 
testant uses it continuously, never for a 
moment surrendering it to any outward au- 
thority. The intelligent Catholic uses it once 
for all in surrendering it to the authority of 
the Church. This act of surrendering one's 
private judgment in matters of faith to the 

7 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

judgment of the Church may be in itself a 
supreme act of private judgment, earnest, 
protracted, and satisfying. To many minds 
the argument for such a surrender is per- 
suasive and convincing. ^^ Given the reve- 
lation of God in Christianity, what more 
natural than that this revelation should be 
committed to the Church : and if thus com- 
mitted, how much better the authorized 
judgment of the Church in all matters of 
faith than the judgment of the individual: 
how much safer the investment of one's 
religious belief in the Church than if held 
among one's private securities.'' 

Doubtless there are many cases in which 
it is not fully understood at the beginning 
just how much this acceptance of the judg- 
ment of the Church in place of the contin- 
uous use of private judgment really means. 
Experience alone can show in any realizing 
sense that it means one thing and one thing 
only, — submission, absolute and complete 

8 



MINISTRY OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY 

submission. The language, however, of the 
Roman Catholic Church is perfectly clear 
at this point, whether uttered in pastoral 
address or in the formal definition of its 
authority. " My brethren/' says Cardinal 
Mercier in his Lenten Pastoral of 1908, fol- 
lowing the Papal Encyclical on Modern- 
ism, " we have here merel}^ a question of 
honesty. Yes or no ? Do you believe in the 
divine authority of the Church? Do you 
accept exteriorly and interiorly what in the 
name of Jesus Christ she proposes to your 
belief ? Yes or no ? If 3^es, then she puts 
the sacraments at your disposal and under- 
takes your safe conduct to heaven. If no, 
you deliberately break the bond that united 
you to her, of which she had tied and blessed 
the knot. Before God and your conscience 
you belong to her no more.'' ' 

* Lenten Pastoral of Cardinal Mercier, Primate of Bel- 
gium, in enforcement of the Encyclical Pascendi of Sep- 
tember 8, 1907, on Modernism : given in full in Mediceval" 
tsm, a reply to Cardinal Mercier by Father Tyrrell. 

9 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

•-. Compare with this the language of the 
Right Reverend Monsignor Vaughan in 
the more formal definition of the authority 
of the Papacy. " When Peter speaks ex-ca^ 
thedra he speaks with the infallible author- 
ity conferred on him by God. And Peter 
still lives and still speaks in the person of 
his successor. What he binds on earth is 
bound in heaven. If he defines a doctrine 
— let us say the immaculate conception of 
the Blessed Virgin — what happens? So 
soon as he defines it, he binds it upon the 
consciences of all Catholics. They are 
obliged to accept it.''' Such an assertion 
and acceptance of authority can be under- 
stood by a Protestant only as he reminds 
himself of the process of surrender and sub- 
mission which these assume. INIore than 
this, he must also remind himself of that 
temper and disposition of mind upon which 

^ *'The Catholic Church: What is it?" By the Right 
Reverend Monsignor Vaughan, Rome. Hibbert Journal^ 
April, 1908. 

10 



MINISTRY OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY 

a religion of absolute authority is based. 
Religions of this order endure because the 
type of mind which supports them persists. 
The authority of the Papacy survived Pro- 
testantism, though under the conditions of 
its survival it lost control of the governing 
mind of the world. Another conception of 
religious authority took control of the peo- 
ples committed thenceforth to the defense 
and extension of religious liberty. Protest- 
antism meant more historically, and far 
more in principle, than the transfer of obe- 
dience from an infallible Church to an in- 
fallible Bible. The recent biographer of 
Karl Marx, in explaining the conversion of 
the elder Marx from Judaism to Christian- 
ity, says that " he seemed to have looked 
upon Protestantism as being something 
more than the intellectual and spiritual pro- 
test of religious enthusiasts against dogma 
and ecclesiastical authority: as being in fact 
a movement for intellectual freedom and 

II 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

general progress/' ' This view of Protest- 
antism, though partial, is not superficial. 
Intense as were the religious demands 
which made Protestantism necessary, and 
powerful as were the political forces which 
gave it so wide a supremacy, the spirit of 
Protestantism was closely akin to that 
spirit of intellectual freedom which gave us 
democracy and modern education. The ad- 
vance of religious, political, and educational 
liberty has been in the main an advance 
through comradeship. Protestantism has 
come to represent preeminently that part 
of organized Christianity which lies open 
to the mind of the world, and which feels 
most sensitively the intellectual progress of 
the world, whether the sources of progress 
lie within or without Christianity. It does 
not forbid its adherents from entering with 
sympathetic interest into that " extra-Chris- 

* John Spargo : Karl Marx^ His Life and Work, pp. 23, 
24. 

12 



MINISTRY OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY 

tian world/' in which Mr. Huxley used to 
say that he and persons of like interests 
spent much of their time in the investigation 
of subjects which were " neither Christian 
nor unchristian." Protestantism stands com- 
mitted not only to the doctrine of the right 
of private judgment, but also to the general 
and far-reaching belief that religious pro- 
gress is dependent upon intellectual free- 
dom in matters of religion. It would be 
cowardly for Protestants to deny any of the 
legitimate consequences of their intellectual 
affiliations or of their sympathies with lib- 
erty. The greatest consequence, as they be- 
lieve, is religious progress. A consequence 
which is quite sure to appear in time of in- 
tellectual upheaval and confusion is a cer- 
tain loss of spiritual authority. At such 
times authority waits in part upon the read- 
justment of faith to the larger and clearer 
knowledge. 

Without question the churches of the 

13 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

Protestant faith have been passing through 
a period of serious intellectual disturbance, 
with a consequent loss of authority. The 
authority which rests upon experience and 
upon service has not been lessened. But 
spiritual authority is not normal and com- 
plete when it lacks the full indorsement of 
the mind of the Church. The mind of the 
Protestant Church has been for a gener- 
ation in a state of inquiry rather than of 
affirmation at certain vital points of faith. 
Most immediate in its bearings upon au- 
thority has been the inquiry, under the 
application of the principles of historical 
criticism, into the doctrine of sacred Scrip- 
ture. Less immediate in its bearings upon 
authority, but in some respects more far- 
reaching, has been the inquiry into the 
method of the divine working, including 
miracles, considered in the light of the the- 
ory of evolution. And very influential in the 
way of reaction upon theological opinion 



MINISTRY OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY 

and belief has been the closer study of men 
under the conditions of modern civilization, 
and the wider and more intelligent ac- 
quaintance with the human race. It is not 
too much to say that the conception of God, 
the interpretation of the person and work 
of Jesus Christ, the motive of missions, have 
been modified by the more intimate know- 
ledge of humanity. 

I have already intimated that the process 
looking toward the reestablishment of the 
spiritual authority of the Church is well 
under way. As I proceed to consider re- 
sults more in detail, I shall insist that the 
process is so far advanced that the Church 
is now justified in reasserting its spiritual au- 
thority. It would indeed be a happy conclu- 
sion of the questionings, searchings, discus- 
sions, and even controversies of the Church, 
if the generation which has heard all these 
should yet hear the voice of the Church in 
some compelling reaffirmation of its faith. 

15 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

This is not necessary. If need be, more than 
one generation can afford to spend and be 
spent in that search after truth which can 
alone give reality to religion. My insist- 
ence, however, is that the intellectual strug- 
gle through which the Church of this gen- 
eration has been passing is fast nearing its 
natural and legitimate conclusion in the re- 
assertion of spiritual authority. There can 
be no severer spiritual discipline than that 
involved in the search after truth. There 
can be no greater relief to the believing 
mind than that which comes from discard- 
ing errors, however essential these may 
have seemed to be to faith. There can be 
no consciousness of spiritual power pos- 
sible to the Church more real or inspiring 
than that which comes through the testing 
of its intellectual humility, honesty, and 
courao:e. The consciousness of the Church 

— this is the supreme fact of Protestantism 

— is the chief source of power in the exer- 

i6 



MINISTRY OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY 

cise of spiritual authority. External proofs, 
which are accessible to all, gain their mo- 
tive power from those who have actually 
incorporated them into faith. The sensi- 
tiveness of the world to the vitality, or bet- 
ter the freshness of this faith, cannot be 
overestimated. Whenever the intellectual 
faith of the Church, for any reason what- 
ever, grows stale, the external evidences of 
Christianit}^ have little authoritative value 
among men. Whatever the process maybe 
which reinvigorates the faith of the Church, 
by that same process the evidences of 
Christianity are brought nearer to the un- 
derstanding of men and to their consciences. 
The authority of Protestantism cannot reach 
far beyond the assured consciousness of the 
Church in matters of faith, a consciousness 
born out of its spiritual experiences, but re- 
invigorated from time to time as it passes 
under the tests of the enlightened reason. 
This assurance of faith may be, as it 

17 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

doubtless has been, of the same degree of 
power in all believing ages, but the point 
of belief varies like the point of view. Be- 
lieving men of different generations see 
" eye to eye," not because they look from 
the same point, but because looking from 
their respective points of vantage they dis- 
cover the like spiritual realities. Looking, 
for example, toward Christ from the needs 
and aspirations and achievements of their 
differing times, they alike see that in him 
which is "the same yesterday, to-day, yea 
and forever.'' It is of the very genius of Pro- 
testantism to take advantage of the natural 
approach of each age to the unchanging 
truth in Christianity. Believing that God is 
in his world as well as in his Church, it 
does not hesitate to use the environment of 
faith in the interest of faith. 

What are the gains to faith from the more 

^ ^y^^^ recent changes in the apprehension of re- 

j f ' ligious truth, which, as they are appropriated 

i8 



MINISTRY OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY 

by the Church, ought to increase the con- 
sciousness of its spiritual power, and give 
a more confident assertion of its spiritual 
authority? 

First of all, Protestantism now has in hand 
a Bible which it can hold in consistency 
with its own well-defined principles. A 
Bible exempted from the tests of historical 
criticism is not a Protestant Bible. It is in- 
consistent to the last degree to affirm the 
right of private judgment in respect to the 
interpretation of Scripture, and at the same 
time to deny the right of private judgment 
in respect to the origin and historical order 
of the Scriptures. From the Protestant point 
of view it is as necessary to ask what the 
Bible is, and how it came to be, as it is to 
ask what the Bible means. It is as reverent 
a thing to reinvestigate the authenticity of 
Scripture in any of its parts as it is to re- 
examine and revise the text of Scripture. 
Indeed, if textual criticism is justifiable, 

19 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

much more in every way is historical 
criticism. 

The argument against the examination 
into the origin of the Bible, because such an 
examination tends to create confusion in the 
minds of believers, has its own answer in 
the experience of Protestantism regarding 
the exercise of the right of the individual 
interpretation of Scripture. What are the 
many divisions and sub-divisions of Protest- 
antism, which constantly point the moral 
for the advocates of an infallible Papacy, 
but the outgrowth of the different interpre- 
tations of Scripture, or the over-emphasis, 
as in the case of the Papacy itself, upon some 
one text of Scripture ? As Protestants we 
believe that on the whole the liberty of pri- 
vate interpretation has been profitable to 
religion in spite of the temporary cost to the 
unity of the Church. The temporary cost, 
I say, for it is a most significant fact that 
the historical criticism of the Bible, in break- 

20 



MINISTRY OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY 

ing down the literalism of denominational 
beliefs, has contributed more than any one 
cause toward the recent advance in Chris- 
tian unity. A Bible set free from the last 
bondage to literalism, no longer the bulwark 
of divisive ecclesiastical dogmas, but now 
become the simple and natural vehicle for 
the supreme revelation of God to men, has 
already begun its great constructive work 
in the Church, of which the chief sign is the 
growing concentration of faith among Chris- 
tian believers. The first result of this intel- 
lectual revival of Christianity has been the 
apprehension of Christianity in its whole- 
ness. It has brought out the one aim and 
purpose of the Bible in true proportion. 
The separating tenets of the sects have been 
relegated to their proper place. The belief 
which makes a man a Christian has been 
magnified above any or all beliefs which 
make him this or that kind of a Christian. 
Here lies a most appreciable gain to faith. 

21 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

The new conception of the Bible is giving 
a new conception of Christianity, larger, 
simpler, and more unifying. Incidentally, 
it is very much to have gained a Bible which 
can be held in complete harmony with the 
principles of Protestantism, open at every 
point to fearless but reverent inquiry; but 
the essential gain to faith, and therefore to 
the spiritual authority of the Church, lies in 
the change of emphasis from the external 
to the internal authority of the Bible. It is 
the spirit of the Bible reaching complete ex- 
pression in the person, teachings, work, and 
sacrifice of Christ, that is becoming the rule 
of Christian faith and practice, displacing 
the rule of that literalism, which, by giving 
equal authority to all parts of Scripture, neu- 
tralized in so large degree the authority of 
Scripture as a whole. As Dr. George A. Gor- 
don has recently remarked with much signi- 
ficance, " When Jesus comes into history a 
new perspective of the Bible is needed.'' 

22 



MINISTRY OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY 

Another gain to faith, contributing per- 
haps more directly to spiritual authority, is 
to be seen in the growing realization of 
Christian unity throughout Protestantism, 
and even throughout Christendom. For the 
first time for centuries multitudes of Chris- 
tians, irrespective of any local designation, 
really believe and feel that the Church is 
nothing less, to borrow the inspiring saying 
of Erasmus, than " the congregation of all 
men throughout the whole world who agree 
in the faith of the Gospel." So far as the 
sense of this universal fellowship obtains, 
there goes with it the consciousness of spir- 
itual power. The ordinary speech or action 
of the individual believer, in whom this new 
consciousness is dominant, rises into the 
dignity and repose of spiritual authority. 

There is an authority, far greater at times, 
born out of an entirely different experience. 
The individual, standing, so far as he knows, 
absolutely alone, conscious only of his iso- 

23 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

lation in his testimony to some compelling 
truth, may stand for the highest type of au- 
thority. Most of the authoritative move- 
ments of the Church have had their origin 
in these individual and isolated experiences. 
Gradually the contagion of some steadfast 
witness to an unrecognized truth has created 
a v^itness-bearing body of believers. Many 
of the protesting Christian communions 
arose in this way. But when a protesting 
truth has been acknowledged, and has found 
acceptance according to its value, the pro- 
test has fulfilled its office. It then becomes 
untimely and therefore ineffective. The 
spiritual equivalent of the protest can then 
be found only in a deeper and more vital 
grasp upon the common faith. 

Whatever occasion may arise in the im- 
mediate future requiring the protest in the 
service of truth, it seems to be clear that 
spiritual authority now lies, not in the iso- 
lated and unacknowledged truth calling for 

24 



MINISTRY OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY 

witnesses, but in the fundamental and uni- 
versal truth of Christianity to be appre- 
hended more seriously and joyfully under 
the consenting fellowship of "all men 
throughout the whole world who agree in 
the faith of the Gospel.'' The danger of 
insincerity and formality lies to-day in the 
narrowness of dissent or in the pride of ar- 
rogant assumption. Every distinctive body 
of Christians may be allowed and expected 
to remain loyal to its own traditions, but the 
grand loyalty, to be demanded of all alike, 
is loyalty to that conception of Christianity 
which can be realized and exemplified only 
in a vital Christian unity. 

Reference has been made to the effect of 
the historical criticism of the Bible in break- 
ing down the barriers which have been 
created and maintained under the rule of 
literalism. Its effect in this regard cannot 
be overestimated. But criticism, it is to be 
remembered, is altogether an intellectual 

^5 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

process. The immediate results are de- 
structive. Sometimes the process seems to 
be over-destructive. Doubtless the histori- 
cal criticism of the Bible seemed at first to 
many to be needlessly destructive, and its 
results too far negative. The positive side 
of its work appeared later, as has been in- 
timated, in opening the larger view from 
the Scriptures and in revealing the essen- 
tial truth which they set forth in right pro- 
portion to its environment. But neither the 
removal of barriers, nor the enlargement 
of view caused by the new understanding 
of the Scriptures, can fully explain the sud- 
den and swift tendencies in all the churches 
toward unity. The " flowing together " of 
heretofore separate currents of religious life 
is the most striking phenomenon in the re- 
ligious world of to-day. There seems to be 
no limit to the practical combinations which 
are being effected between the different de- 
nominations. The spirit of cooperation is 

26 



MINISTRY OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY 

becoming the dominant spirit in the conduct 
of missions at home and abroad — more 
marked even abroad than at home. Very 
significant in this respect was the recent 
World Missionary Conference at Edin- 
burghj made up of twelve hundred delegates 
from all the Protestant missionary bodies in 
the world, speaking and working in perfect 
harmony in a ten days' session, and conclud- 
ing with the appointment of a Continuation 
Committee to carry out so far as practical 
the suggestions of the Conference, and to 
prepare at the fitting time for another like 
gathering. " Perhaps the greatest and most 
comprehensive impression," saidDr. Arthur 
H. Smith, the missionary statesman of China, 
in reviewingthe Conference, "was the open- 
ing and steadily expanding vision of a pos- 
sible reunited Christendom which many of 
us have perhaps been unconsciously rele- 
gating to the spaces of eternity.'' 

The sermon of Bishop Brent of the Phil- 

27 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

ipplnes in Westminster Abbey soon after 
the meeting at Edinburgh was equally sig- 
nificant as giving a glimpse of the unifying 
sentiment which is at work in the Anglican 
Communion. In discussing relative spiritual 
values from the perspective of missionary 
service in the Philippines, he made the fol- 
lowing contrast: "To one coming as I do 
from the vast Orient, where great questions 
compel our whole attention, questions which 
threaten our very existence, the matter of 
ritual seems a very subsidiary affair. There 
are two classes of people in the world, those 
who gesticulate and those who do not. It 
is largely a matter of temperament — those 
who gesticulate are the ritualists, those who 
do not are the non-ritualists. The subject 
is unworthy of much attention. Fairness 
recognizes that the City of God is a city of 
magnificent distances. Its height and length 
and breadth are the same — limitless ; in it 
are great extremes, not contradictory, but 

28 



MINISTRY OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY 

complementary. He who lives at one ex- 
treme reaches his largest liberty when he 
can visit the opposite extreme without los- 
ing his way. If, however, he goes only with 
abuse on his lips and missiles in his hand, 
in God's name let him keep to his own cor- 
ner of the city. It is not safe for himself 
or others to walk abroad. The beauty and 
proportion of the city are spoiled when you 
narrow its boundaries. It is of the essence 
of unfairness to read out of the city a fellow 
citizen because he lives in a distant street 
with which you are not acquainted." 

It may seem too impracticable a matter 
for notice to refer to the incorporation of 
the "Christian Unity Foundation/' having 
for its ultimate aim the formal union of all 
Christians throughout the world — of the 
Protestant Churches, of the Roman Catho- 
lic Church, and of the Greek Church. But 
who knows how to measure those yearnings 
and anticipations which so often precede 

29 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

the change of the impossible into the pos- 
sible? The plain fact is that there is a 
growing expectation at the heart of Chris- 
tendom in regard to the unity of the visible 
Church. Formal and structural unity may 
not be desirable. The unity of mutual re- 
cognition and of cooperation between all 
parts of the Church may be the better re- 
sult. But the end sought for is coming to 
be more than a sentiment. There is a glow- 
ing belief, rising at times to a prophetic 
sense, that the Church has arrived in the 
order of truth at the understanding and de- 
claration of the truth of the Kingdom of 
God. This belief, in so far as it is enter- 
tained, is giving to the Church of to-day the 
consciousness of its place in the historic 
succession. The full realization of this be- 
lief would give the Church a place beside 
the Church of the Reformation, or of any 
earlier distinguishing period. For the ac- 
ceptance of each new truth in the divine 

30 



I 



MINISTRY OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY 

ordering carries with it the exercise of the 
appropriate Christian virtue. In the order 
of the great Christian virtues, — faith, hope, 
and love, — it is the last which awaits an 
exemplification like that which attended 
the experience of hope in the early Church, 
or the experience of faith in the Church of 
the Reformation. 

A still greater gain to faith, in the way 
of spiritual authority, is to be found in the 
more intimate relation of Christian thought 
to the person of Christ. In referring to the 
present relation of Christian thought to 
Christ as more intimate, I do not affirm 
that it is clearer or better defined. In many 
respects it is distinctly less clear and well 
defined. The more modern conception of 
Christ lacks altogether the definiteness of 
the metaphysical statements in regard to his 
person. The language in which nearly all 
modern writers on the person of Christ 
take refuge is — "The uniqueness of Jesus " ; 

31 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

a very indefinite, and for any of the really 
defining uses of speech a most unsatisfac- 
tory term. But in the very indefiniteness of 
the term, as it has come into common use, 
one may detect the present effort of faith 
to detach the thought of Christ from the 
formal and rigid abstractions of the early 
creeds, and to make him more accessible 
to those who would think of him in per- 
sonal terms, each in his own way and ac- 
cording to his own desires. No one who 
compares the synoptic gospels with the 
Pauline epistles can deny the Christian lib- 
erty of idealizing the person of Jesus. In- 
spired though the idealization of Paul may 
have been, it is none the less the expression 
of his own personal need, trust, love, and 
devotion, — in fact, it covers the whole 
range of his quickened imagination and 
emotions. The greater Christian souls in 
succeeding ages have taken the like liberty. 
Each of the more vital Christian ages has 

32 



MINISTRY OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY 

had in a very real sense its own Christ. 
Some have tried to put their Christ into 
their creeds, others into their prayers and 
hymns. Whatever has seemed most true, 
most necessary, most to be believed in, or 
to be hoped for, in God, most to be longed 
after and striven for by man, has been, ac- 
cording to the varying spiritual standards 
of the time, set forth in the vision of Christ. 
The vision may at times have been dis- 
torted, but it has always reflected the best 
there was at every time in the struggles and 
hopes of humanity. 

According to this liberty of idealization 
as applied to the person of Christ, much of 
the present thought about him is employed 
in the transfiguration of his humanity. To 
many, standing in this transfigured presence, 
the lines between the human and the divine 
soften and fade away. The perfect human- 
ity of Jesus becomes the complete expres- 
sion of his divinity. To such minds also the 

33 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

humanity of Jesus becomes the assurance 
and the guarantee of the divine in man. 
Then we, too, are the sons of God. 

In interpreting this conception of Christ 
it is not necessary to accept its limita- 
tions, or to adopt the logic of its conclusion. 
Back of every really Christian conception 
of Christ there are always vast reserves of 
faith. The faith of our age draws, far more 
than it is conscious to itself of drawing, upon 
the faith of all the ages. I have listened to 
sermons on the human Christ couched in 
the language of reverent homage or of pas- 
sionate adoration, as if inspired by the the- 
ology of the Nicene Creed, or by the mys- 
ticism of the mediaeval church. Logically 
the premise did not seem to carry so high 
a conclusion. When Harnack says, as re- 
ported by Professor Evans in the " Congre- 
gationalist'' of September 3, 1910, "If we 
hold fast unconditionally that Jesus was a 
man, it remains true that God has made this 

34 



MINISTRY OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY 

Jesus Lord and Christ for mankind, and 
that faith in him has created and still cre- 
ates sons of God/' there are many Christians 
who would prefer to read the title to their 
sonship in a closer relation to God. An 
earlier statement of Richard H. Hutton, 
then editor of " The Spectator/' is in this 
regard more assuring. " We are told by it 
(the Incarnation) something of God's abso- 
lute and essential nature, something which 
does not merely describe what he is to us, 
but what He is in Himself. If Christ is the 
eternal son of God, God is indeed and in 
essence a Father; the social nature, the 
spring of love, is of the very essence of the 
eternal being; the communication of his 
life, the reciprocation of his affection dates 
from beyond time, belongs, in other words, 
tothe very being of God." . • . [This truth] 
" is first proclaimed to us to save us from 
sin, strengthen us in frailty, and lift us above 
ourselves; but it could not do this as it does, 

2S 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

did we not know that God was, and his 
love was, and his fatherly life was, apart 
from man, and that it is a reality infinitely 
deeper and vaster than the existence of his 
human children." ' We are, that is, sons of 
God, not because of a relation of fatherhood 
established in our behalf, but because the 
relation always existed in Him, to be made 
known to us by Jesus Christ, by whom also 
it was to be made available for us, even in 
our sin. 

But who may question the logic of devo- 
tion, or measure its carrj^ing power into the 
regions of faith ? The faith in Christ which 
is born out of present conditions is not largely 
metaphysical, much less controversial, but 
rather interpretative, and all the more real 
because unconsciously interpretative of the 
feeling of humanity toward him. It is the 
spontaneous tribute of that humanity which 

' Richard Holt Hutton, The Incarnation and Principles 
of Evidence^ pp. 29, 37. Pott & Amerv. (1871.) 



MINISTRY OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY 

has been created in and through him dur- 
ing the Christian centuries. If humanity 
finds itself nearer to God, so that the deep- 
est sense of the human reaches more and 
more into the consciousness of a divine ca- 
pacity, it is Christ who is recognized as the 
inspirer of this far-reaching consciousness. 
Hence the ardor and glow of the new faith, 
and above all its contagious loyalty. Its au- 
thority lies not in definitions of the nature 
of Christ, nor in logical deductions from the 
Scriptures concerning his person, but in the 
interpretation of the feelings of men toward 
him, their desire to honor him, to obey him 
as master, to follow him as leader, to fight 
his battles with unrighteousness and sin, to 
take part in the establishment of his king- 
dom on the earth. 

If there is a growing insistence upon the 
humanity of Christ in the practical faith of 
the Church, it is because men find them- 
selves drawing near to him under the ur- 

37 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

gent incentives of human needs, both per- 
sonal and social, and because their ideals of 
service have no satisfying realization short 
of his sacrifice. And if in like manner in- 
sistence is placed upon the humanity of 
Christ in any attempt to define his nature, 
to reconstruct the doctrine of his person, it 
is because men think they see in him the 
perfect oneness of the human and the di- 
vine. In no sense is the conception of Christ 
most characteristic of modern thought or 
faith, a revival, either by intention or in 
spirit, of any merely humanistic theories of 
his person which have had their day in past 
theological controversies. That view of him 
rather has been fixed upon which seems to 
reveal him in his nearness to men, which 
invites intimacy in the diviner forms of ser- 
vice, and which best accords with the Chris- 
tian optimism of humanity concerning its 
own future on the earth. Whatever may 
prove to be the shortcomings of this con- 

38 



MINISTRY OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY 

ception of Christ, these are not to be found 
in the spirit and purpose which animate 
those who hold it. Its spiritual authority 
lies in the sincerity in which it is held, and 
in the increasing response which it awakens 
among all who have at heart the saving of 
their fellow men. 

A bold exception to the otherwise univer- 
sal feeling throughout Christendom toward 
Christ must be noted in the rising cult domi- 
nated by the philosophy of Nietzsche and 
his disciples. Its attack upon Christianity 
is original, in that it is an attack upon hu- 
manity as interpreted by modern demo- 
cracy. Christianity is a "curse'' because it 
takes sides with the underpart of humanity. 
That were better eliminated. Sympathy, 
charity, pity are obstructive virtues in the 
progress of the race. The average man de- 
lays the coming of the superman, the sur- 
vivor in the struggle for existence, the goal 
of mankind. The Christ of humanity is the 

39 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

chief hindrance to progress, because he 
haunts the world with the idea of saving 
men, and so burdens the race with the mul- 
titude who, for the final result, were better 
unsaved. This is an absolutely fair attack 
upon Christianity and logical to the last de- 
gree. It reaches to the heart of the whole 
issue in which the future of Christianity is 
involved, passing by all questions about the 
authenticity of its sources, all questions of 
Christian theology, all questions about the 
person of Christ. It aims at the spirit of 
Christianity. Its contention is with those 
who believe that this spirit was embodied 
in Jesus of Nazareth, and who in his name 
do their saving work in humanity. The 
various tenets of the Christian faith are not 
matters of interest. 

It is refreshing to have the issues con- 
cerning Christianity thus set forth and de- 
fined. Here is the real issue. The defiance 
of this philosophy, its very blasphemies (in 

40 



MINISTRY OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY 

the ears of Christian believers) can be par- 
doned to its clearness, directness, and cour- 
age. It is so definite and practical that it 
can be understood by workingmen at their 
tasks as easily as by the " intellectuals.'' In- 
deed, it is the basis of a recent discussion 
between two writers on the staff of two pop- 
ular newspapers — the one a socialist, the 
other an individualist. The philosophy of 
Nietzsche in interpreting itself gives the 
best possible interpretation of present-day 
Christianity. It sweeps the ground of minor 
issues, and makes perfectly clear what it 
now means to be " with " Christ or " against " 
him. 

A further gain to faith, not directly as 
a source of authority, but of more value 
as vitalizing the religious atmosphere, is 
the new sense of the reality of a spiritual 
world. The reaction from materialism has 
been positive as well as negative. The 
lesser reaction is seen in disappointment, 

41 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

dissatisfaction, and disgust with its moral 
results. The greater reaction is beginning 
to be seen in a revaluation of the things of 
the spirit. Another psychology on deeper 
foundations and with vastly broader range 
is in the process of development. It is not 
too much to say that the study of mental 
and spiritual phenomena divides the field 
of academic interest and research with the 
study of physical phenomena. Physical sci- 
ence itself can no longer be quoted, if indeed 
it has ever been rightly quoted, in support 
of a purely materialistic conception of the 
universe. The authority of the senses has 
been strictly delimited to the field within 
which the senses can act. This limitation 
of the range of the senses was brought out 
very vividly in the simile introduced by Sir 
Oliver Lodge in his address before the Brit- 
ish Association at its recent meeting at 
Sheffield. Materialist man was his simile; 
indeed, all men in a greater or less degree 

42 



MINISTRY OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY 

might be compared to a dog in a picture 
gallery. The dog lacked the power to see 
the more important of the truths presented 
to his eyes. He could investigate but not 
appreciate what was before him. " It was 
through our senses,'' said the speaker, " that 
we became aware of the universe. But they 
also limited us and determined the kind of 
information that we received. We often for- 
got that. We thought we saw the universe 
in the only possible way it could be known. 
If we had other senses the universe would 
look quite different. Our senses happened 
to tell us about matter. Imagine beings 
whose senses told them about ether, and ig- 
nored matter. Their point of view would be 
quite different, and their statements incon- 
sistent with ours. Yet both would be true 
as far as they went." 

Here is a pretty wide and clear open- 
ing for the faith of the mystics. Keble 
does not venture far within when he sings 

43 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

(with the change of but a word in his 
lines), — 

Two worlds are ours : 'tis only (sense) 
Forbids us to descry 
The mystic heaven and earth within 
Plain as the sea and sky. 

Much of the best philosophic thought in 
the interpretation of spiritual phenomena is 
becoming positive and far reaching. " The 
world interpreted religiously/' says Wil- 
liam James, " is not the materialistic world 
over again, with an altered expression : it 
must have over and above the altered ex- 
pression a natural constitution different at 
some point from that which a materialistic 
world would have. It must be such that dif- 
ferent events can be expected in it, differ- 
ent conduct must be required. . . . The 
whole drift of my education goes to per- 
suade me that the world of our present con- 
sciousness is only one out of many worlds 
of consciousness that exist, and that those 

44 



MINISTRY OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY 

other worlds must contain experiences 
which have a meaning for our life also: 
and that although in the main their experi- 
ences and those of this world keep discrete, 
yet the two become contiguous at certain 
points, and higher energies filter in. By 
being faithful in my poor measure to this 
one belief, I seem to myself to keep more 
sane and true. I can of course put myself 
into the sectarian scientist's attitude, and 
imagine vividly that the world of sensations 
and of scientific laws and objects may be all. 
But whenever I do this, I hear that inward 
monitor of which W. K. Clifford once wrote, 
whispering the word 'bosh'! Assuredly 
the real world is of a different temperament 
— more intricately built than physical sci- 
ence allows.'' ' 

^'The world interpreted religiously . . . 
must be such that different events can be 

* William James, TJie Varieties of Religious Experie7ice^ 
PP- 578-579. 

45 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

expected in it, different conduct required.'' 
In this pregnant sentence lies the germ of 
a rational belief in miracles. The religious 
interpretation of the world does not mean 
a blind resort to a vague supernaturalism. 
Who can measure the elasticity of nature? 
Who will dare deny room for the natural 
operation of forces which elude the ordi- 
nary watch of the senses? Who will dare 
deny the natural operation of hidden forces 
which may at times come out into the open 
and declare themselves to the senses? 
Doubtless the miracle would be of little ad- 
vantage to-day to faith. In the judgment of 
Jesus its evidential value, even in his time, 
was of secondary account. The proof of 
himself was in himself. "Believe me that I 
am in the Father and the Father in me — or 
else believe me for the very works' sake." 
But he did not hesitate to put forth " mighty 
works" when that kind of working seemed 
the more intensely natural to the men of his 

46 



MINISTRY OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY 

time, and therefore more convincing. Be- 
cause " our senses happen to tell us about 
matter'' more acutely than has ever been 
the case in the experience of man, shall we 
make their specialized use in this direction 
the test of any past or future action to which 
they may have been or may yet be trained? 
Are we commissioned because of our expert 
knowledge of matter to standardize the re- 
lation of the material to the spiritual world ? 
Will the ages of greater spiritual enlighten- 
ment which are yet to come acknowledge 
this age of the highest known material de- 
velopment as the age of spiritual authority? 
In other words, is this the age to settle once 
for all the question of miracles? 

These questions are pertinent to our dis- 
cussion, and yet in asking them I am con- 
scious that they do not fairly represent the 
underlying and emerging spirit of our time. 
That I believe to be rising toward the 
religious interpretation of the world. It is 

47 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

wonderful how quickly and how efficiently 
the spirit in man asserts itself against any 
and all materialistic interpretations of the 
universe. Man has never allowed any usurp- 
ation of his place in the order of the world. 
Whether after the manner of the East he 
withdraws himself from matter, when it 
would overcome him, holding himself su- 
perior and apart, or after the manner of the 
West, upon every accession of material 
force he straightway proceeds to subju- 
gate and control, it is still the same spirit 
asserting itself in superiority or in mastery. 
There is, however, another manifestation 
of the spirit in man in its attitude toward 
the material world, quite different from the 
contempt of the East or the utilitarianism 
of the West, namely, its ability to make it- 
self at home in an enlarging physical uni- 
verse. Something of this appeared when 
modern astronomy revealed a new relation 
of man to the universe of space, but for that 

48 



MINISTRY OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY 

revelation the mind of man had been reason- 
ably prepared. Day after day, and night after 
night, he had been apprised of other worlds. 
The theory of evolution set forth a new re- 
lation of man to the universe of time. This 
revelation came as a surprise to all, and as a 
shock to many. The average mind had not 
been prepared for this story of ages upon 
ages in the making of the earth, and in the 
development of life upon its surface, much 
less for the tremendous conclusions drawn 
from it affecting man himself. The opening 
of an illimitable past in the life of the earth 
was a far more appreciable and bewildering 
extension of man's environment than any 
previous enlargement of the physical uni- 
verse had been. It seemed to let the human 
mind into the inmost secrets of the working 
of the Almighty. Nothing in the vastness 
of the creative plan ever produced so great 
a moral effect as the new knowledge of the 
minuteness, the orderliness, the infinite pa- 

49 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

tience involved in the method of procedure 
in the development of life on the earth. Re- 
ligious thought passed through the succes- 
sive stages of confusion, antagonism, and 
reflection into a serious investigation of the 
actual phenomena of life, especially of the 
relation of the spiritual in man to the phy- 
sical; with the final result, already inti- 
mated, of the assertion of man's spiritual 
supremacy. The religious mind has become 
naturalized in this larger world of time, and 
finds itself more at home in it than it could 
ever have hoped to be in the universe of 
space; for that could only proclaim the 
power and glory of a transcendent God, 
while this reveals the nearness, the patience, 
the forethought of the immanent God. 

In setting forth the gains to Christian 
faith from the present intellectual revival in 
Christianity, there has been no intimation 
that these gains are to be understood as re- 
constituting Christianity. Christianity has 

SO 



MINISTRY OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY 

never been made over by any generation, 
not even by that which gave us the Re- 
formation. The unchanging truth at the 
heart of it is always vastly more essential 
and significant than any of those changes in 
the apprehension of it which come through 
the necessary readjustment of the intel- 
lectual faith of the Church to the more en- 
lightened reason. Nothing is more to be 
deprecated than such a term as the " New 
Religion/' when reference is thereby meant 
to some special development or application 
of Christianity. Christianity came into the 
world once for all, a new but abiding spir- 
itual power, making itself known through 
its revelation of God and its interpretation of 
humanity, and making itself felt through its 
sacrificial attitude toward the human race. 
The spirit of Christianity is not an improv- 
able quality judged by any known ethical or 
spiritual standards. The Church has not yet 
realized, in faith or in practice, the meaning 

51 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

of its revelation of God, or of its interpre- 
tation of man. We have learned by expe- 
riences, both bitter and joyful, through our 
denial of it and through our acceptance of 
it, that there is but one way to the heart of 
the world, — the way of the cross. 

Neither is it to be inferred from the in- 
sistence which has been placed upon the re- 
sults of the intellectual revival in Christian- 
ity that these results will have a sufficient 
outcome and expression in some Christian 
Apologetic. Such an outcome, if at all com- 
parable with some of the Apologies of other 
times, would indeed be welcome, but it is 
not necessary and would not in itself be suf- 
ficient. The larger and sufficient outcome 
must appear in spiritual authority; and spir- 
itual authority makes its appeal, not only to 
the reason, but to the whole man. Reason 
always has the right to block the way of au- 
thority when authority becomes unreason- 
able. It would be a sad anomaly if truth 

52 



MINISTRY OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY 

could prevail against reason ; prevail, that is, 
against one of its chosen instruments. On the 
other hand, spiritual truth can never make 
headway through the reason alone. Reason 
rightly demands satisfaction, and satisfaction 
includes quickening and inspiration. When 
this high end has been accomplished, reli- 
gion is prepared to assert its authority over 
the conscience and the emotions, — the two 
constants in the moral objective of Chris- 
tianity. When once Christianity has been 
set free (this is the not infrequent intellect- 
ual task of faith) from the bondage of liter- 
alism, from the narrowness of the divisions 
and sub-divisions of the Church, from the 
unrealities of a merely traditional belief, and 
above all, from the benumbing influence of 
materialism in any of its subtle forms; and 
when once the Church has been brought 
back (this also is the intellectual task of 
faith) to the clear apprehension of the un- 
changeable spirit of Christianity, of its abid- 

S3 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

ing truth, and of its unalterable method — 
then the ministry of spiritual authority has 
free exercise among men. If the intellectual 
faith of the Church, or better, its apprehen- 
sion of Christianity, is clear, convincing, 
satisfying, stimulating to the Church itself 
and really Christianizing, there is little need 
of reasoning with the world. The world is 
ready at any time for the application of real 
Christianity. The getting ready, so far as 
this is an intellectual process, belongs to 
the Church in its own behalf, far more than 
in respect to the world. 

The authority of the Church has, of 
course, its direct and immediate objective 
in the conscience. Nothing vital is reached 
until that is reached. Authority is not es- 
tablished until it is established in the moral 
sense. Due account must be taken of the fact 
that the moral sense of men, both in individ- 
uals and in communities, is constantly under 
appeal from other sources than the Church, 

54 



MINISTRY OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY 

and quite apart from the incentives or sanc- 
tions of religion. There are times, for exam- 
ple, when the press is as strenuous in its 
moral appeals as the pulpit, but with this dif- 
ference. The press is for the most part im- 
personal, the pulpit is altogether personal. 
Personality plays an important part in moral 
appeal, not so much because of the voice, 
and eye, and presence of the speaker, as be- 
cause of the opportunity to identify and ver- 
ify the appeal. Who makes the appeal, and 
in whose interest? What are the motives ? 
A journal of thoroughly established consist- 
ency, even if the management is not known 
personally, may have great moral influence; 
but if there is a suspicion regarding any 
journal that it is insincere, or " interested,'^ 
in its advocacy of a moral cause, its influ- 
ence is next to naught. It is not simply the 
question of what is said, but of who says it. 
The press is fast coming under the rule 
which Aristotle laid down for the orator, — 

S5 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

^^Your influence over your hearers will 
depend upon what your hearers think of 
you." 

The far greater difference, however, be- 
tween the moral appeal from the Church 
and any like appeal from other sources 
lies in the fact that the moral objective it- 
self is really different. It is one thing to 
arouse public sentiment; it is quite another 
thing to awaken the personal sense of sin, 
or even the personal sense of duty. To in- 
dividualize, if need be to isolate the con- 
science, to bring the soul into the presence 
of God, to make men feel, each for him- 
self, as William James says for us all, that 
^^we and God have business with each 
other,'' is the moral prerogative of religion. 
It is only from within the Church that a 
Tertullian can say, " Soul, stand thou forth 
in the midst. I summon thee, not such as 
when found in the schools, trained in the 
libraries, nurtured in the academies and 

S6 



MINISTRY OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY 

porches of Athens. I address thee as sim- 
ple, such as they have who have nothing 
but thee, the very and entire thing that thou 
art in the cross-roads, in the public squares, 
in the shops of the artisans. I demand of 
thee those truths which thou hast of thyself 
carried with thee into man, which thou hast 
learned to know either from thyself or from 
the author of thy being.'' ' 

It is a fair and necessary question to ask 
whether we have not reached the limit in 
our advance toward public righteousness, 
without the support of a corresponding ad- 
vance in personal religion. Why so frequent 
relapses in moral reform ? Why does the evil 
suppressed at one point find vent so easily 
at another ? Why do " we the people " study 
so carefully the evasion of the laws which 
we enact, or neutralize their spirit in the 
keeping of them ? Why does the conscience 
of the city or of the nation apparently de- 

' Works of Tertullian, De Testtjnonio Animae^ chapter i. 

57 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

cline in sensitiveness and might with the 
increase of numbers ? These are questions 
which have no answer short of a moral 
reckoning with ourselves as individuals, as 
moral units in the community, or corpora- 
tion, or state. It is doubtful if the Church 
ever had a more open or acknowledged 
opportunity for the assertion of moral au- 
thority, or for a more direct advance toward 
its moral objective in the consciences of 
men. If the Church can once again teach 
men how to repent, the nation will evidently 
enough reap the fruits of their repentance. 
Public corruption will visibly diminish, as 
men, semi-righteous men, withdraw from it 
the support of their personal cooperation 
or indifference. Who doubts for a moment 
that if the membership of the Church of 
Christ in this country were seriously and 
sensitively honest, our cities and the nation 
itself would be at least safe from corrup- 
tion ? All honor to the men who are fight- 

58 



MINISTRY OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY 

ing the battles of righteousness from within 
or from without the Church. But after all, 
so far as the Church is concerned, is it the 
Church militant which can do the present 
business quite so thoroughly as the Church 
uncorruptible, undefiled, " unspotted from 
the world'' ? 

Concerning the other constant, to which 
I have referred as the moral objective of 
the Church in the exercise of its spiritual 
authority, namely, the emotions, we cannot 
remind ourselves too often or too urgently 
that the truths of Christianity were de- 
signed to be felt. Christianity is written in 
the language of the great emotions. It is 
the story of the forgiveness, compassion, 
patience, and sacrificial love of God finding 
response in the gratitude, devotion, trust, 
and sacrificial love of the human heart. 
The generations which have not been pro- 
foundly moved by the distinctive Christian 
truths have not been profoTmdly Christian. 

S9 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

The greatest danger to Christianity, espe- 
cially in times of intellectual awakening, is 
that it may become what Dr. Jowett calls 
a " dry religion.'^ As against such a dan- 
ger the risks from the more emotional faiths 
are hardly worthy of mention. The almost 
inevitable tendency of a religion untouched 
by emotion is toward complacency, — com- 
placency in respect to the conventional 
virtues, or in respect to good deeds of dif- 
ferent sorts, or in respect to superiority in 
matters of belief. It is hard to reach a true 
and abiding humility except through the 
deeper experiences of the soul. 

The evangelical note is never absent from 
the real message of Christianity. Christian- 
ity always wants to be a gospel. It seeks to 
" find " every man in his need. Very few 
sail over the many depths of life without 
going down into some of them — the depth 
of loneliness, of temptation, of disappoint- 
ment, of moral weakness, of the sense of 

60 



MINISTRY OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY 

sin. These escaped, there remains to every 
man the inevitable catastrophe. From the 
first struggle of the soul with things which 
are to be resisted to the final surrender to 
the inevitable, man needs God, and he may 
at any moment be apprised of the fact. 
Christianity is not simply a religion for 
moral and spiritual emergencies; but if it 
were not that, always that, and known to 
be such, it would be too scant and weak a 
religion for the human race. 

The contagious element in religion lies 
in the emotions. When religion is not con- 
tagious it is not thoroughly at work. In the 
spiritual world the terms of the physical 
life may be reversed. Contagion is the sign 
of health. Religion is in a normal stage in 
any community when it is in the contagious 
stage. Its vitality is greatest when it over- 
leaps all obstructions, and spreads its ^^ sav- 
ing health'' among the nations. The su- 
preme test of the vitality of the Church, the 

6i 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

supreme measure of its spiritual authority, is 
found in its missionary attitude. In its deep- 
est and broadest sense the missionary atti- 
tude is an emotional attitude. Every man 
knows the meaning of the love ^the world. 
That he knows is a matter of the heart. 
\jOn^ for the world has no meaning that is 
not in like manner, and to a like degree, a 
matter of the heart. In the exercise of its 
spiritual authority, the projective and carry- 
ing power of the Church lies largely in the 
depth and breadth of its emotional faith. So 
Christianity began to spread, and so it has 
continued to spread. The faith of Paul has 
been the missionary faith of the Church, 
and his faith was " logic on fire." 



II 

THE MINISTRY OF HUMAN SYMPATHY 

The ministry of spiritual authority is 
based upon the apprehension of truth. The 
ministry of human sympathy is based upon 
the fellow-feeling with men. Modern so- 
ciety presents certain alienating conditions 
under which this ministry of the Church 
must be exercised. These are of various 
kinds, as will appear incidentally in the 
course of the discussion. The most serious 
alienating condition, however, is one which 
the Church itself has created. The Church of 
a great democracy has not kept pace with 
the growth of the democratic spirit. Natu- 
rally this condition, because the Church has 
created it, calls for the especial attention of 
the Church. It makes it the matter of first 
concern in the interest of religion that the 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

Church shall recover that contact with the 
life about it, which it has lost to its own hurt 
and to the hurt of religion. 

The Christian term for contact is sym- 
pathy. Sympathy is not pity and it is more 
than charity. It is the most concrete and 
sensitive expression of both love and justice. 
The kind of consideration which it demands 
of one man in behalf of another is expressed 
in the personal word, — " Put yourself in his 
place.'' It is by far the most difficult of at- 
tainment of all the outgoing Christian vir- 
tues. Pity is almost spontaneous, and char- 
ity in some form and within limits is easily 
cultivated. But sympathy becomes a hard 
and reluctant virtue, as any one can dis- 
cover for himself, when human demands 
rise above pity or charity. It is easy to feel 
for, and to act for the man who is down : it 
is hard to feel with the man who is coming 
up, especially if he has nearly reached one's 
own level. Democracy assumes the con- 

64 



MINISTRY OF HUMAN SYMPATHY 

stant and willing exercise of sympathy, sym- 
pathy for the rising man or the rising class. 
The poor, the weak, the unaspiring are not 
necessarily any better off under a demo- 
cracy than under any other civilized form of 
society or government. Pity and charity can 
do their work, leaving the ordinary social 
classifications undisturbed. But when the 
ambition to rise begins to take effect, and 
social discontent becomes widespread, and 
organized efforts are made to advance, then 
the demand is for sympathy. If this demand 
is not met promptly and willingly, the re- 
sult is alienation, and the creation of a class 
or classes from below rather than from 
above. 

The present social fact of most religious 
significance is the rise of the workingman 
and his alienation from the Church. Indeed, 
the rise of the workingman, the organiza- 
tion of workingmen into a class, and the 
solidarity of the upward movement, con- 

6s 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

stitute the most important social, and per- 
haps poHtical phenomenon of the present 
day. We are now concerned with the move- 
ment religiously, for it has become to some 
a religion, and to many a substitute for 
religion. All workingmen are by no means 
socialists. Trade unionism, as originally de- 
vised and as now generally interpreted, is 
anti-socialistic in its economic principles. 
But most workingmen are in sympathy with 
socialism in its social, and ethical, and semi- 
religious aims. In so far as socialism offers 
itself as a substitute for the religion of the 
Church, it has their sympathy if not their ad- 
herence. In so far therefore as socialism, in 
offering itself to workingmen as a substitute 
for the religion of the Church, wins their 
sympath}^, it ought to receive the careful 
attention and study of the Church. Far too 
little thought of any discriminating kind is 
given by the Church to the religious aspects 
of socialism, as may be seen by noting two 

66 



MINISTRY OF HUMAN SYMPATHY 

very common fallacies in the general rea- 
soning on this subject. 

One fallacy lurks in such reasoning as 
this: socialism is an economic system; as 
such it is impracticable; therefore it can 
have no large influence religiously. 

Socialism is an economic system. It 
means a definite and complete replacement 
of any and all existing economic systems. 
It stands for the substitution of public for 
private ownership in the means of produc- 
tion. The economic definition of socialism 
which has received unquestioned accept- 
ance is as follows: "To replace the system 
of private capital by a system of collective 
capital, that is, by a method of production 
which would introduce a unified organiza- 
tion of national labor on the basis of collect- 
ive or common ownership of the means of 
production by all the members of society. 
This collective method of production would 
remove the present competitive system, by 

67 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

placing under official administration such 
departments of production as can be man- 
aged collectively, as well as the distribution 
among all of the common produce of all, 
according to the amount and social utility 
of the productive labor of each." ' The So- 
cialist Party National Platform (Chicago, 
May, 1908) declares — "The private own- 
ership of the land and means of production 
used for exploitation is the rock upon which 
class rule is built: political government is 
its indispensable instrument. The wage- 
workers cannot be freed from exploitation 
without conquering the political power and 
substituting collective for private ownership 
of the land and means of production used 
for exploitation." ^ 

Government control over certain public 
utilities, or government ownership of them, 

' Dr. A. Schjiffle, The ^uifttessefice of Socialism^ pp. 3, 
4, 3d English and 8th German editions. 

* Cited in Twentieth Century Socialism^ Edmund Kelly, 
p. 416 (Appendix). 

68 



MINISTRY OF HUMAN SYMPATHY 

so far as it has been attempted, stops far 
short of socialism. The control or owner- 
shipjfor example, of the means of transport- 
ation is a very different thing from the direc- 
tion or ownership of all the means of pro- 
ductive industry. The productive industries 
are organized under the initiative, control, 
and ownership of private capital. Socialism 
means the reversal of the present process. 
The ethical reason for socialism is given 
in the following statement of the theory: 
" Summarily we may describe it as the 
doctrine that, whereas the means of pro- 
duction (capital, with land and raw mate- 
rial) are as indispensable to every man's 
existence as his own body, society should 
secure for all its members an equally free 
access to them, by disallowing private pro- 
perty in them. Private property, as it exists, 
exists solely in virtue of social action, and 
the motive for that action is social utility. 
Its aim is to secure for the producer the 

69 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

means of production, so that he who will 
work may work out his own salvation. 
Socialists believe this aim to be unrealized, 
owing to the tendency of capital to con- 
centration. This tendency divides society 
into two classes, — a diminishing class who 
have capital and can work on their own ac- 
count, and an increasing class who have 
not, but must sell their services; capitalists 
and ^^proletarians.'" 

The economic argument for socialism 
(collectivism) is based upon the tendency 
of the present competitive system to over- 
production. Production stimulated by com- 
petition, multiplied indefinitely by machin- 
ery and by the exploitation of labor, creates 
a surplus of goods constantly demanding 
new markets, a demand which can be met 
only by commercial expansion ; which means 
commercial wars, the support of great navies, 

^ R. C. K. Ensor, Modern Socialism as set forth by Social- 
ists^ 2d edition, pp. xxvii, xxviii. 

70 



MINISTRY OF HUMAN SYMPATHY 

and increased taxation — all of which re- 
sults in the enrichment of the few at the 
expense of labor. The remedy for over-pro- 
duction is the regulation of the product ac- 
cording to the wants of those who produce 
it, the assignment of work to each producer, 
and the distribution of the product in ratio to 
the determined value of the work rendered. 
The practicability of the socialistic 
scheme is utterly denied by the average 
business man, as by most students of eco- 
nomics. Many of the evils complained of 
under the present system are admitted, but 
the remedy proposed by collectivism is re- 
jected, on the ground that the abolition of 
free competition would take away the chief 
initiative from business, reducing in time 
the quality of the product, flattening pro- 
duction to the level of unstimulated wants; 
on the ground that assigned labor would 
become enforced labor, introducing a new 
and arbitrary type of bondage; and on the 

71 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

further ground that the scheme would break 
down in administration, owing to the im- 
possibiHty of providing through the State a 
sufficient number of competent administra- 
tors free from the taint of personal ambition. 
To the ordinary business mind the ap- 
parent impracticability of collectivism set- 
tles the whole question. But not so to the 
mind of the socialist. At the point of as- 
sumed impracticability he takes up the ar- 
gument and urges it with the ardor of reli- 
gious faith. The characteristic of religious 
faith is that it is not daunted by the seem- 
ingly impracticable. It looks forward to 
new conditions which it expects to create, 
under which the impracticable, if right, 
will become practicable. So the socialist 
strengthens the argument in his own mind, 
if that be necessary, by the infusion of 
faith. To understand socialism one must 
go beyond the argument for it to the faith 
of the socialist. " The typical socialist of 

72 



MINISTRY OF HUMAN SYMPATHY 

Germany, France, England, and America, 
the man or woman who gives his or her en- 
ergies to educating and organizing and dis- 
ciplining the wonderful world-wide army, 
ever growing, ever marching forward, un- 
dismayed by defeat, sure of ultimate vic- 
tory, already thirty millions strong — the 
largest army under a single banner the 
world has ever seen — this typical worka- 
day, militant socialist does not look upon 
himself or herself as a patent medicine 
vender, but as a John the Baptist proclaim- 
ing with no uncertain sound the advent of 
a New Order, Such an army inspired by a 
common faith, even though the faith be a 
delusion, animated by a common purpose, 
even though the purpose be incapable of 
realization, is a force that you as a practi- 
cal man must reckon with.'' ' Such an as- 

* Men vs. the Man : a Correspondence between Robert 
Rives La Monte, Socialist, and H. L. Mencken, Individual- 
ist, p. 3. Henry Holt & Co. 

73 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

sertion of the socialistic faith shows the fal- 
lacy of dismissing socialism as a negligible 
quantity in its semi-religious influence, be- 
cause of its impracticability as an economic 
system. 

Another and somewhat like fallacy lies 
in the very common way of reasoning 
about socialism to this effect: The insist- 
ence of socialism is upon the possession of 
material goods; but the possession of ma- 
terial goods is not the aim of religion ; there- 
fore socialism is not worthy of consider- 
ation in its religious aspects. The reply of 
the socialist to this reasoning is very defi- 
nite and concrete. It is the argumentutn 
ad komtnem. Material good may not be the 
professed aim of religion, nor its possession 
the chief object of religious endeavor, but 
it is the dominating incident in the religious 
life of to-day. The accumulated wealth of 
the country is largely in the hands of the 
membership of the Church. If this vast 

74 



MINISTRY OF HUMAN SYMPATHY 

possession of material good has no value 
comparable with the spiritual possessions of 
the Church, let the Church make this fact 
clear by the subordination of the material to 
the spiritual, — by renunciation, self-denial, 
and sacrifice. If the possession of mate- 
rial good is fitly incidental to the religious 
life, and if the struggle for its possession is 
worthy of the strenuous effort of religious 
men, then let the Church strive to learn how 
to share it. If the insistence of socialism 
upon material good is wrong, the reply con- 
tinues, the Church ought to rebuke this 
insistence by its practical indifference to 
material good. To the degree in which the 
Church allows the struggle for wealth the 
contention of socialism is justified, that 
material good is something to be sought 
and shared. 

In this reply of the socialist, though it be 
of the personal sort, one can see the fal- 
lacy of overlooking the practical behavior 

75 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

of religious men in dealing with the very 
things upon which other men have equally 
set their hearts, and, as they believe, for 
less selfish purposes. When a socialist says 
that he is willing to share his goods, or that 
he is willing to submit himself, for the bene- 
fit of others, to a system which will oblige 
him to share his goods, he has, if he can be 
taken at his word, the equivalent of a reli- 
gious motive, if indeed it be not actually a 
religious motive. It is evident that the way 
to neutralize the teachings of socialism is 
not so much by showing its economic im- 
practicability, as by showing the moral 
practicability of the present economic sys- 
tem. Something is wrong, and therefore 
unsettled, in a system which does not work 
well morally, in this instance, with due re- 
gard to human interests. The Church can- 
not be satisfied with the gross statistics of 
national prosperity. Its concern is as much 
with the distribution of wealth as with the 

76 



MINISTRY OF HUMAN SYMPATHY 

making of it, lest the methods of making it 
may harbor various sorts of latent injustice. 
I doubt if the Church can hope to make 
much headway in its practical interpreta- 
tion of Christianity among those with whom 
socialism has become a new form of en- 
thusiasm for humanity, except through a 
more sane but equally sincere concern for 
human interests. 

I have already said that socialism in its 
economic teachings is not representative of 
labor. Socialism is a challenge to the pre- 
sent economic system. Trade unionism is 
a compromise with it. "The average wage- 
earner," says John Mitchell, "has made up 
his mind that he must remain a wage-earner. 
He has given up the hope of a kingdom to 
come when he himself will be a capitalist, 
and he asks that the reward for his work 
be given to him as a workingman. Singly, 
he has been too weak to enforce his just 
demands, and he has sought strength in 

77 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

union, and has associated himself into labor 
organizations. . . . There is no necessary 
hostility between labor and capital. Neither 
can do without the other: each has evolved 
from the other. Capital is labor saved and 
materialized : the power to labor is in itself 
a form of capital. There is not even a ne- 
cessary, fundamental antagonism between 
the laborer and the capitalist." ' 

Beyond the ranks of the socialists and 
the trade unionists lies the vast unclassified 
army of workingmen, ranging from the 
most unskilled laborer to the workman who 
is in a small way a private capitalist. Prob- 
ably the majority of this vast body of labor- 
ers are not in the habit of thinking much 
about the economic aspects of their work. 
The one characteristic (the only one with 
which we are now concerned) common to 
laborers throughout the country, whether re- 
presenting organized or unorganized labor, 

* John Mitchell, Organized Lahor^ Preface. 

78 



MINISTRY OF HUMAN SYMPATHY 

is a certain indifference to the Church, or 
alienation from it. There are doubtless a 
good many exaggerated statements current 
on this subject, which can be refuted by 
reference to exceptional communities or 
churches, but it is no exaggeration to say 
that the Church has lost its hold upon the 
workingman of the country, and that this 
loss of influence dates from the rise of the 
workingman through his own efforts, espe- 
cially through organization. To the degree 
in which the workingman has been made 
conscious of himself, made conscious, that 
is, of his relative position in society, he has 
separated himself from the Church. Turn 
which way we will, this alienation of labor 
from the Church is the background in the 
religious prospect. 

In considering the cause or causes for 
this state of affairs, the Church ought to 
be very careful lest it shall aggravate the 
matter by offering excuses. There really is 

79 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

no sufficient excuse for this loss of influence. 
Showing how it may have happened, or 
actually did happen, is not showing why it 
should have happened. The plain fact is 
that at some time the Church began to lose 
'its influence by neglecting a very essential 
part of its business, and that since that time 
it has not been suflSciently earnest in doing 
this essential part of its business to regain 
its influence. Of course, it requires far more 
earnestness to regain influence than it would 
have required to continue to deserv'e it 
The Church lost contact with the work- 
ingman by failing to understand him, much 
more to estimate him, by failing to sym- 
pathize with his ambition and purpose to rise, 
and by failing to do what it might have done 
to make a sufficient place for him in the 
social order. The Church of a democracy 
failed in its application of the democratic 
spirit at the critical time and in the critical 
place. The early insensitiveness of the 

80 



MINISTRY OF HUMAN SYMPATHY 

Church to the condition and aims of the 
workingman, the lack of sympathy — the 
fellow-feeling — with him, gradually led 
to a state of feeling on his part varying from 
indifference to alienation. The situation is 
now very complicated. Of that there is no 
question. The practical question is, Has 
it gotten out of the hands of the Church? 
Is it too late to recover it with a view to the 
best results to all concerned? 

I believe that the answer to this ques- 
tion lies almost entirely with the laymen 
of the Church, with Christian business men. 
The Church, acting through its authorized 
agencies, may put itself on record in re- 
gard to matters of common social concern, 
and by conference and cooperation with 
labor organizations may accomplish much 
in bringing about needed reforms. Individ- 
ual leaders of the Church, whose course 
has been consistently wise and courageous, 
may become more and more influential in 

8i 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

their relations with the leaders of labor and 
with the masses. Here and there a minister 
rightly placed in a labor community, and 
properly equipped for his task, may change 
local sentiment by effecting changes in 
adverse local conditions. But any large and 
effective movement, looking toward the 
recovery of the workingman to the Church, 
must come through those who are in close 
and responsible relations to him, and ought 
to originate with them. Of course this im- 
plies the personal element, but it does not 
mean that individual action, however sym- 
pathetic it may be, is sufficient. The situ- 
ation has long since passed by the stage 
of paternalism. Business men belong to a 
system under which no man can act effect- 
ively alone. In other words, the time has 
come when those who would seek to re- 
cover the alienated classes within the ranks 
of industry must give as much attention to 
the working of the present general eco- 

82 



MINISTRY OF HUMAN SYMPATHY 

nomic system, as to the details of their re- 
spective kinds of business. The technical 
part of this broader work must be intrusted 
to experts; but back of all delegated service 
there is always the opportunity and the de- 
mand for a supporting public sentiment in 
the business world, for organized opinion, 
at times for collective action. 

It is not altogether a bad sign that many 
laymen of the Church are growing restive 
under the prominence given by the pulpit to 
subjects of social concern. " I go to church," 
said a distinguished layman, as recently re- 
ported in the daily press, " every Sunday of 
the year. I go in the expectation of hearing a 
sermon based on the principles that under- 
lie our faith. I do not go to hear about po- 
litical economy or to be instructed in polit- 
ical principles. I go to have my best feelings 
improved, and to come away with all that 
is best in me quickened, so that I may be a 
better citizen in every respect. I therefore 

83 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

recommend to the churches that when they 
preach to their people, they remember that 
the people want religion and lots of it, and 
not political economy.'' 

In criticism of this kind there is the plain 
intimation that the pulpit takes advantage 
of its position to invade the territory which 
belongs to business men. " Political Eco- 
nomy/' the layman virtually says, " is not 
your business, it is mine." Without waiving 
an}^ of his rights, or without replying merely 
in the way of retort, why should not the 
preacher take the layman at his word, ut- 
tered or implied, and force upon him the 
natural, and, as things are to-day, the highly 
significant conclusion, "Make political eco- 
nomy, with all of its present human compli- 
cations, your business as a Christian busi- 
ness man. It is to-day the chief part of the 
business of Christian business men, business 
of a vastly higher order than the making of 
money. In the division of duties which you 

84 



MINISTRY OF HUMAN SYMPATHY 

suggest, here is your duty and your respon- 
sibility. You belong to the Church as much 
as the minister, and you represent it more 
widely and more sensitively than he can 
possibly represent it. Accept your share 
of the great Christian obligation, now so 
clearly defined and so honorable, and fulfill 
its responsibilities in the name of Christ and 
his Church/' 

I doubt if many of the laymen of the 
Church have fully considered the fact that 
the existing economic conditions are a chal- 
lenge to their intelligence. Money-making 
maybe or may not be an intellectual process, 
at least there are different degrees of intel- 
lectual ability exemplified in the act. For- 
merly, in fact until ver}^ recently, the highest 
intellectual test was the ability to utilize 
unused material forces, or to promote new 
and vast enterprises. The incoming test of 
intellectual ability in business is bringing in 
a very well-recognized and imperative moral 

85 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

factor. The change is seen in the different 
use of the term "exploitation." Gradually 
the term has come to stand for selfish, often 
for ruthless methods. To exploit now means 
more frequently than otherwise "to bring 
out anything for one's own advantage with- 
out regard to rights or right." The intellect- 
ual test now puts the emphasis more and 
more upon the ability to accomplish great 
ends with due "regard to rights and right." 
The game of the street is no longer money- 
making, however large may be the result 
That is not the whole game. The whole 
game includes "right and rights^^ — hon- 
esty and humanity. If the Church is to re- 
cover its lost relation to the workingman, 
it must insist that the laymen of the Church 
who are in business shall learn to play the 
whole game. 

This learning to play the whole game — 
to include in it the new conception of " right 
and rights" in the transactions of business, 

86 



MINISTRY OF HUMAN SYMPATHY 

in the accumulation of wealth, in the pro- 
motion of great enterprises — is not the task 
of a day. A great deal which has come 
in through tradition and through practice 
must be unlearned. The new conception 
of "right" denies the theory that the end 
justifies the means, the waning theory of 
success; denies the theory that what is 
gained by evasion of law, or by legaliz- 
ing a wrong, can be morally right ; denies 
the theory that charity can cover the sins 
of business. And the new conception of 
"rights'^ requires a sincere and controlling 
regard for all the human relations and inter- 
ests concerned in it. It absolutely denies 
the implication of the old maxim that "busi- 
ness is business," affirming that business is 
business only when it takes account of all 
the human factors involved. Without doubt 
this conception of business makes business 
more difficult, but it is just this conception 
of it which will make it more and more 

87 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

honorable, which is making it more and 
more honorable. The making of money 
has ceased to be very much of a distinc- 
tion. The ease with which one may be- 
come a millionaire, the greater ease with 
which once a millionaire he may become a 
multi-millionaire, does not conduce to the 
sort of distinction which men most crave. 
That is always associated in some way with 
the humanities. There la}^, and still lies, 
the honor of the professions. These are all 
based upon human relations, the relation of 
man to man through justice, through mercy, 
through truth. The rating of a man profes- 
sionally in the public esteem is determined 
by the evidence of his loyalty to the prin- 
ciples of his profession, and by his ability 
to make it of the largest service to human- 
ity. No sane man can deny the material 
benefits which accrue from nearly all the 
transactions which pass under the name of 
business. No one well informed can be un- 

88 



MINISTRY OF HUMAN SYMPATHY 

mindful of the benefactions to society asso- 
ciated with the names of business men. No 
one can overlook the moral support to 
society in the examples of integrity, con- 
spicuous and inconspicuous, which charac- 
terize the vast trust-bearing service of the 
business world. But if business is to become 
a profession, as I believe it will become, it 
must be by making the human interests 
involved in it the first concern. The lack 
in this regard, the lack, in the final analysis, 
of human sympathy, has the most direct 
and appreciable effect in the alienation of 
the workingman from the Church. That is 
what it has cost the Church. 

As this alienating process has been going 
on for a generation we may expect that the 
work of recovery will be the work of a 
generation. The work cannot be done by 
sentiment, it cannot be done through any 
reversion to paternalism, above all it cannot 
be done in haste. As Bagehot has pointed 

89 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

out, haste is the vice of philanthropy. " To 
act rightly in modern society requires a 
great deal of previous study, a great deal 
of assimilated information, a great deal of 
sharpened imagination; and these perqui- 
sites of sound action require much time, 
much ' lying in the sun.' '' ' There must be 
much patience, much toleration, much faith, 
and very much plain speaking; for it is not 
to be assumed for a moment that prejudice, 
or violence, or any kind of wrong thinking 
or wrong doing, on the part of labor, is to be 
condoned. Movements like that of the Civic 
Federation, or legislation looking toward 
conciliation, are suggestive, but no specific 
is here urged. It has been assumed that the 
business laymen of the Church are impatient 
of instruction as to their business relations. 
No attempt, therefore, has been made in 
these pages to show precisely how these 
relations with the alienated classes are to be 

* Bagehot, Physics and Politics y p. i88. 

90 



MINISTRY OF HUMAN SYMPATHY 

improved. Insistence has been placed upon 
the manifest need of recovering the alien- 
ated classes, and upon the application of the 
intelligence of the business layman to this 
point as a part of his business. The respon- 
sibility for such moral adjustments of the 
economic system as shall remove the pre- 
sent causes of alienation and distrust on the 
part of workingmen, has been laid upon 
the laymen of the Church. A long step in 
advance will have been taken when the 
responsibility in this matter has been recog- 
nized and accepted. Who can doubt the 
final result, if the laity of the Church, who 
represent so largely the business of the 
country, shall prove faithful to the ministry 
of human sympathy in its application to 
this most difficult, if not otherwise inacces- 
sible, task now before the Church? 

The Church has a further and very abun- 
dant occasion for its ministry of human 
sympathy in connection with the distribu- 

91 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

tion of foreign immigrants throughout the 
country. Religious hospitality may take 
either of two forms on the part of the Pro- 
testant churches. When the religious ante- 
cedents warrant, the religious immigrant 
may be given a home in any church of 
his choice, or he may be aided directly in 
maintaining his own order of worship. The 
Protestant churches are by no means remiss 
in the exercise of this form of hospitality. 
Far-reaching provision has been made in 
behalf of those accessible to Protestant in- 
fluence, through the churches directly, and 
no less effectively through schools, colleges, 
and seminaries adjusted to their uses. 

There is another type of religious hos- 
pitality which can find expression only in 
a certain sympathetic attitude toward the 
religious immigrant, whatever may have 
been his previous affiliations. This means 
that we ought to be ready to give thanks 
that the immigrant is usually religious and 

92 



MINISTRY OF HUMAN SYMPATHY 

that he brings his religion with him. 
We are the rather inclined to wish, that if 
he must come, he would leave that behind 
him. And if by chance we learn that he 
has in any numbers broken away from his 
religious environment, oris in revolt against 
it, we are apt to count that fact altogether 
in his favor. Whereas the fact to be con- 
sidered and approved is that the religious 
life of the immigrant is the best contri- 
bution which he has made, and in present 
circumstances the best which he can make 
to the country of his adoption. Instead of 
antagonizing it we ought to guard it, not in 
form but in spirit, and make sure that he 
transmits it to his children. If we Ameri- 
canize the children of the immigrant out of 
the religion of their fathers, leaving upon 
their minds the impression that religious 
freedom means irreligion, we are simply ex- 
changing a possible asset of great value to 
citizenship for a sure danger and risk to it. 

93 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

Herein consists the chief responsibility of 
the public schools of the great cities. I sup- 
pose that the teachers in the elementary 
schools of the foreign sections of New York 
and Chicago are doing more than an}^ equal 
number of persons to determine the moral 
future of the country. I have reason to 
believe that they are proving adequate to 
their task. The name " teacher " is a house- 
hold word in the new families. The sympa- 
thy, the trustworthiness, the moral authority 
of "teacher'' is assumed in the home, as 
well as by the child. Doubtless many a 
teacher has learned her own lesson of re- 
spect for the sacredness of things which 
are sacred. The public school cannot teach 
religious doctrine; it can, under its limita- 
tions and because of them, do a greater 
thing, — it can teach reverence. 

Reference ought also to be made to the 
work of the social settlement in the assimil- 
ation of the foreign population in the cities. 

94 



MINISTRY OF HUMAN SYMPATHY 

This work is much more advanced than 
that of the public schools. It follows the 
really domesticated immigrant into his so- 
cial and civic relations. It helps him to dis- 
criminate between the good and the bad 
agencies in the new civilization which he is 
trying to understand. It introduces him to 
wider opportunities than he would other- 
wise discover. Above all, it enables him to 
utilize himself as a force for the social good, 
to realize the fact that he has much to give 
as well as to receive. The work of the social 
settlement, however, like that of the public 
school, can only be referred to in the way 
of illustration, as it cannot fairly be claimed 
as an agency of the Church, though often 
originating under its incentives. 

As the tide of immigration is now begin- 
ning to flow from eastern Europe, another 
and less familiar type of religious life is be- 
ginning to appear in our cities. It is esti- 
mated that there are already nearly half a 

95 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

million of the members of the Greek Cath- 
olic Church in this country. The new im- 
migration introduces new nationalities and 
races as well as a new form of religion — 
nationalities and races which seem more 
alien than any which have preceded. There 
is very much danger that the Protestant 
churches will allow the strangeness, and 
the undesirableness, in some respects, of 
the new immigrant to affect their under- 
standing and appreciation of his religious 
spirit. What if it shall prove that the Sla- 
vonic race, imbued with the spirit of its own 
form of Christianity, has a contribution of 
essential value to make to American Chris- 
tianity ? Some years ago Dr. George Wash- 
burn, then president of Robert College, 
writing on "The Coming of the Slav''* 
especially in relation to European civiliza- 
tion, gave the following resume of an ad- 
dress by a young Slav. " The Latin and the 

* T/ie Contemporary Review^ January, 1898. 

96 



MINISTRY OF HUMAN SYMPATHY 

Teutonic races have had their day, and they 
have failed to establish a truly Christian 
civilization. They have done great things 
in the organization of society, in the de- 
velopment of material wealth, in literature, 
art, and science, and especially in recogniz- 
ing and securing in some degree the rights 
of the individual man ; but they have exalted 
the material above the spiritual and made 
Mammon their God. They have lost the no- 
bler aspirations of youth, and are governed 
now by the sordid calculations of old age. 
We are waiting the coming of the Slav to 
regenerate Europe, establish the principle 
of universal brotherhood and the King- 
dom of Christ on the earth.'' Without in- 
dorsing this statement of the Slav orator, 
either as history or as prophecy. Dr. Wash- 
burn proceeded to give the following testi- 
mony to the Slav peasant — the man who 
is now appearing among us as an immi- 
grant. " In his religious character, at least, 

97 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

the Moujik is the most original and most 
interesting peasant in Europe. He has 
grave faults and weaknesses, like other 
men; but his peculiar virtues, his pathetic 
endurance of suffering, his profound sym- 
pathy w^ith humanity, his faith in voluntary 
self-sacrifice, his ver}^ dreams of destin}^, 
commend him to the sympathy of all the 
world. He does not seem to belong to the 
matter-of-fact world of the nineteenth cen- 
tury. . . . The Moujik has a sublime spirit 
of self-sacrilice. He will sacrifice anything 
for what he conceives to be his duty. This 
spirit of self-sacrifice does not manifest it- 
self alone in great and exceptional deeds of 
heroism, but in daily life.'' 

It is an unseemly thing for a Christian 
nation which invites and stimulates immi- 
gration to estimate the immigrant simply 
by his value as an unskilled laborer. But 
as the quality of his religious life is in most 
cases the only other contribution of imme- 

98 



MINISTRY OF HUMAN SYMPATHY 

diate value which he brings, it is for the 
Church to estimate this quality aright, and 
to apprise the nation of its value. Evidently 
there is a growing need of the broader cul- 
tivation of the art of religious hospitality. 

The opportunity for the exercise of the 
ministry of sympathy in connection with the 
incoming of immigrants from the more re- 
mote and alien peoples of Christendom sug- 
gests the much wider opportunity for its ex- 
ercise in connection with the work of foreign 
missions. It is evident that success in the 
further prosecution of this work depends 
more than formerly upon the kind of spirit 
in which it is carried on. The time has come 
when the non-Christian peoples, if they are 
to be reached, must be made to feel not only 
the ardor and aggressiveness of Christian 
love but also its fine restraints. It must 
be recognized more completel}^ that the 
gateway through which all must pass, who 
would do good in any way to their fellow 

99 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

men, is humility. So our Lord came to us. 
" He humbled himself.'^ Unfortunately the 
great missionary nations of the Protestant 
faith are not humble nations. The charac- 
teristics of love which Paul so much exalts 
are not the characteristics most in evidence 
in the United States, Great Britain, or Ger- 
many. " Love vaunteth not itself, is not 
puffed up, does not behave itself unseemly, 
is not provoked . . . beareth all things, 
believeth all things, hopeth all things, en- 
dureth all things.'' The missionary, how- 
ever humble he may be in spirit or in prac- 
tice, is obliged to do his work against the 
conspicuous background of national pride 
and arrogance. This grievous inconsistency 
is becoming so widespread and obstruct- 
ive that it raises the question whether the 
Church itself is sufficiently possessed of the 
divine quality of sympathy to prosecute its 
missionary work in a becoming spirit. The 
exercise of sympathy implies the habit, the 

lOO 



MINISTRY OF HUMAN SYMPATHY 

gift. Ungifted persons are apt to be awk- 
ward and ineffective in their attempts at 
sympathy. This is not a question of man- 
ners. Sympathy will somehow declare itself 
when it is the compelling motive. Is sym- 
pathy a sufficiently dominant and compell- 
ing part of the missionary motive in the 
churches ? Love for the world does not ne- 
cessarily mean sympathy with men, nations, 
and races. It may not be simply and in- 
tensely human. Not infrequently it is asso- 
ciated with a certain sense of superiority 
which may be congruous with pity, but 
which is incongruous with sympathy. 

In so far as Protestantism was taken pos- 
session of by Puritanism, as in the early his- 
tory of this country, it grew perceptibly un- 
sympathetic in tone. The Puritan did not 
ask for sympathy. Sympathy seemed to 
him to be debilitating to faith. He preferred 
to think, to act, and to suffer alone. So he 
naturally developed a strong, virile, self- 

lOI 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

reliant, and, at certain points, self-assertive 
type of religion. His theology was self-cen- 
tred, in that it bore the distinctive marks of 
independent thinking. He did not hesitate 
to think his thoughts through to their logi- 
cal, and therefore to him their final conclu- 
sion. The old New England theology did 
indeed allow so-called " improvements,'' but 
only because it was haunted by the idea of 
perfection. This independence and persist- 
ence of thought was justified by a willing- 
ness to take the fortune of beliefs and con- 
victions. All the greater acts of the Puritan 
in his religious and political life were due 
to the sure and quick sequence of duty fol- 
lowing upon belief. The motive power was 
always in his beliefs much more than in his 
sympathies. In his struggles and sufferings 
for liberty, he struggled and suffered for 
principles rather than for men. He really 
loved principles more than he loved men. 
The passion of his soul worked in that way. 

I02 



MINISTRY OF HUMAN SYMPATHY 

When, therefore, the doctrine — the prin- 
ciple — of a universal atonement became 
incorporated into his religious belief, the 
magnificent sequence of duty was foreign 
missions. 

The impulse to foreign missions, in this 
country, did not spring out of the know- 
ledge of the world. The early missionaries 
did not know the world of their time, neither 
did the Church which sent them forth. The 
world which is to us so human, was to them 
altogether a theological world. It was a 
world over which the imagination could 
brood, reaching the sympathies through 
preconceived views of human nature rather 
than through contact with individual lives. 
Men everywhere were one and alike, moral 
units under the bondage of sin, and in the 
scheme of salvation. Foreign missions could 
have had no nobler or more impressive 
origin than under such a vast generalization 
as was then possible, having its practical 

103 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

outcome in the idealization of man as a spir- 
itual being. Every human soul stood forth 
in its own solitary grandeur, undiminished 
by the degradation, and unexalted by the 
glory, of its environment. 

How can the missionary motive be per- 
petuated under the new realistic knowledge 
of the world, a world so near and so close, 
so differentiated by races and nations, so 
specialized by religions, so individualized 
by the names and deeds of men which are 
borne from land to land ? The effect of this 
new knowledge has not yet reached to the 
depth of the missionary motive. Curiosity 
respecting our fellow men has been measur- 
ably satisfied, at least it has passed over into 
the more dignified processes of scientific in- 
vestigation. We are fairly well advanced in 
the study of races and of religions. The uti- 
lization of the new knowledge in the interest 
of trade, measures more than anything else 
the interest of the more developed in the less 

104 



MINISTRY OF HUMAN SYMPATHY 

developed nations. We are with one accord 
" exploiting " the backward peoples. In cer- 
tain conspicuous instances we have reached 
the stage of recognition, fair treatment, and 
cooperation. As civilization spreads, some of 
the obligations of civilization are accepted. 
But how far removed are these results of 
the new knowledge of the world measured 
by their effect upon the missionary motive! 
Where is the equivalent of the idealization 
of the human soul to be found? Or assum- 
ing that we are not to look for its equivalent, 
holding it still as indispensable, where are 
we to look for its supports in our realistic 
knowledge of men and of their environment ? 
The new knowledge of the world cannot 
reach to the depth of the missionary motive 
except as it goes far enough to awaken the 
fellow-feeling in the heart of Christian peo- 
ples, the sense of oneness in sin, the sense 
of sympathy in struggle and aspiration and 
hope. There are manifest gradations in evil 

105 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

mindedness and in evil doing. This has 
been revealed by our larger knowledge of 
the world. We can see that we of the more 
virile Christian peoples have outgrown the 
lower and more cruel sins of the primitive 
races, and that we have not attained to the 
more subtle and refined art of sinning, char- 
acteristic of the older civilizations. We can 
see how perilously near we still are to the 
sins which we have escaped, and also what 
possibilities of sin lie before us. Our know- 
ledge ought to give us a very deep and wide 
sense of the meaning of the fellowship of 
sin. The missionary motive cannot start 
from above or outside the experience of 
this fellowship. If men have no needs or 
wants commensurate with Christianity, why 
try to give them Christianity instead of civ- 
ilization? If we have been civilized only, 
how can we give them Christianity? The 
missionary is really the deepest interpreter 
of humanity who is at work to-day in the 

1 06 



MINISTRY OF HUMAN SYMPATHY 

world. He is doing more than any other" 
sort of man to break through the superfi- 
cialities of civilization. He is the medium 
of exchange between men the world over 
whose conscious needs are the deepest, and 
whose spiritual aspirations are the highest. 
For this reason the relative place of the 
missionary in the Church is rising, and also 
his relative influence in the world. The 
world is beginning to recognize and ac- 
knowledge the effect of his fundamental, 
because sympathetic, work in human na- 
ture, as it passes so often beyond results in 
the individual life into the life of commu- 
nities and states. It is seen more and more 
to be of the kind which leads up to con- 
structive statesmanship. The Church finds 
in him the most unrelenting foe to preju- 
dice, — ecclesiastical, national, or racial, — 
and its most effective leader out of provin- 
cialism. He is the antidote against the be- 
numbing effect of an easy and careless toler- 

107 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

ation, quickening and stimulating the real 
sympathies of the mind and heart of the 
Church. In these days of specialized ser- 
vice, his ministry is that of teaching man 
to know man, interpreting as well as inves- 
tigating humanity, helping the Church to 
keep faith with its own ideals, and thereby 
helping the world to believe in the necessity 
and efficiency of the Church. The ministry 
of human sympathy has its clearest oppor- 
tunity to-day in the work of foreign missions, 
and its clearest exemplification in the inter- 
pretative power of thef ar-sighted missionary. 

There are other ministries that fall 
within the scope of the Church, which will 
be missed in the foregoing treatment of its 
function in modern society. I should doubt- 
less accept those which might be added, 
and agree with the estimate which might 
be placed upon them. There is the ministry 
pertaining to spiritual devotion and wor- 

io8 



MINISTRY OF HUMAN SYMPATHY 

ship, the ministry of religious education, the 
ministry concerned with the protection and 
development of the family (more than ever 
resting upon the Church), and the constant 
ministry of charity both personal and organ- 
ized: to which some would add the ministry 
of healing, a very delicate kind of minis- 
try, to be recalled only in view of the pre- 
sent deficiency of medical science on the 
spiritual side, when compared with its won- 
derful advance on the material side. These 
are all in and of the Church, its own by his- 
toric right and by continuous service. But 
I have wished to put the emphasis upon 
those ministries which seem to be most ur- 
gent and imperative — the more urgent and 
imperative because they have been allowed 
to lapse in some degree according to the 
reasons which have been given. There 
is an unmistakable call for the resump- 
tion of the ministry of spiritual authority, 
and also for the recovery of the ministry of 

109 



THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 

human sympathy. When these ministries 
shall have been restored to their normal 
efficiency, it will be a more gracious task 
to take a survey of the complete function 
of the Church in modern society: to show 
how under the separation of Church and 
State in this country the Church is vitally 
affecting the State; to show how under the 
vast increase of moral agencies both individ- 
ual and corporate the Church remains the 
great moral agency of society; to show how 
under the growth of population, and in the 
midst of rapid changes, the Church has main- 
tained its relative growth and adjusted itself 
with greater gain than loss to changed condi- 
tions ; in a word, to take a fair and just meas- 
urement of the modern Church according 
to the great dimensions which are visible and 
well defined, — its length and its breadth. 
It has been the single object of this present 
study to measure its depth. 



CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
U . S . A 



MODERN 
RELIGIOUS 
PROBLEMS 

Edited by REV. A. W. VERNON, D. D. 

The aim of this series of books is to lay before 
the great body of intelligent people in the Eng- 
lish-speaking world the precise results of modern 
scholarship, so that men both within and without 
the churches may be able to understand the con- 
ception of the Christian religion (and of its Sacred 
Books) which obtains among its leading scholars 
to-day, and that they may intelligently cooperate 
in the great practical problems with which the 
churches are now confronted. 

THE BOOKS PUBLISHED THUS FAR ARE : 

THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

By G. W. KNOX 

With General Introduction to the Series 

"Admirably written." — Chicago Record-Herald, 

" It is surprising how much clear thinking and compact 

information Professor Knox has put into his hundred 

pages." — Independent, 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN CO. 



MODERN RELIGIOUS PROBLEMS 

Continued 



SIN AND ITS 
FORGIVENESS 

By WILLIAM DeWITT HYDE 

** No exposition of a theological doctrine has ever brought 
a deep subject more into touch with real life than Presi- 
dent Hyde's admirable discussion." — Independent, 

" It is almost needless to say that it is an interesting, 
very readable book and earnestly recommended to every 
one." — Boston Transcript, 

THE FOUNDING OF THE 
CHURCH 

By BENJAMIN W. BACON 

"Like all of Dr. Bacon's work, is thoroughly done." 

Hartford Courant. 

"The sanest and most comprehensive statement of the 
Christian religion." — St, Louis Globe-Democrat. 



HOUGHTON MIFFLIN CO. 



MODERN RELIGIOUS PROBLEMS 

Continued 



HISTORICAL AND 
RELIGIOUS VALUE OF 
THE FOURTH GOSPEL 

By E. F. SCOTT 

" Sets forth clearly its surpassing worth as devotional 
literature." — Christian Register, 

** Professor Scott has admirably succeeded in presenting 
such a difficult problem so clearly; and he brings to the 
reader a report from a wide field without confusion. . . . 
It is a clear, interesting, sympathetic study of a great 
problem." — Boston Transcript. 

THE EARLIEST SOURCES 
FOR THE LIFE OF JESUS 

By F. G. BURKITT 

"A brief and frank discussion of the Gospel stories." 

Philadelphia Press, 

"This little volume is really a monument of Biblical 
learning, and it is only just to the author to say that his 
scholarly investigation of the entire subject helps to 
strengthen Christian faith." — Rochester Post Express. 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN CO. 



MODERN RELIGIOUS PROBLEMS 

Continued 



THE CHURCH AND 
LABOR 

By CHARLES STELZLE 

" Mr. Stelzle's * The Church and Labor * signalizes one 
of the most vital rapprochements in the moral life of to- 
day, and it is an important and enduring document in the 
present-day stage of American history." — Robert A. 
Woods^ South End House, Boston. 

"Of unusual interest and worth is the study of *The 
Church and Labor.' ... It shows us social facts and forces 
as they are seen in the light of the harmonizing and 
redeeming spirit of Christianity." — Chicago Record- 
Herald, 

PAUL AND PAULINISM 

By JAMES MOFFATT 

" Deals comprehensively with the Apostle to the Gentiles 
and his teaching as revealed in the epistles attributed to 
him." — Philadelphia Press, 

" It is brief, it is luminous, and it has distinction and 
charm of style." — Chicago Record-Herald, 



HOUGHTON MIFFLIN CO. 



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